Nathan McCall

Personal

Born c. 1955, in Portsmouth, VA; son of a factory worker; divorced twice; children: Monroe, Ian, Maya. Education: Norfolk State University, B.A. (with honors), 1981.

Addresses

Office—Journalism Program, Emory University, 200 Boisfeuillet Jones Center, Atlanta, GA 30322-1950.

Career

Former reporter for Virginia Pilot/Ledger Star and Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, GA; Washington Post, Washington, DC, reporter, 1989-98. Emory University, Atlanta, GA, visiting lecturer in journalism, creative writing, and African American Studies, beginning 1998.

Awards, Honors

Blackboard Book of the Year, for Makes Me Wanna Holler.

Writings

Makes Me Wanna Holler: A Young Black Man in America (autobiography), Random House (New York, NY), 1994.

What's Going On: Personal Essays, Random House (New York, NY), 1997.

Adaptations

The film rights to Makes Me Wanna Holler have been purchased by Columbia Pictures, with John Singleton scheduled to direct.

Work in Progress

A novel set in Atlanta, GA.

Sidelights

"Nathan McCall understands the violence and hopelessness gripping African American youngsters perhaps better that any other modern writer," noted a contributor for Contemporary Black Biography. McCall, author of the memoir Makes Me Wanna Holler:A Young Black Man in America, and a collection of essays on race relations, What's Going On: Personal Essays, is himself a former felon who spent three years in the Virginia prison system for armed robbery. However, when McCall first applied for work as a journalist he hid the fact that he had served time. Eventually, however, he not only told his future employer (the Washington Post) about his past, he made it the subject of his first book, Makes Me Wanna Holler. And with the publication a few years later of What's Going On, a collection that presents his views on a variety of subjects relating to racism and the lives of African Americans, McCall was hailed as a writer of clear, unaffected prose that articulates the experiences of troubled young black men across America. According to Claiborne Smith, writing in the Austin Chronicle Online, McCall "isn't afraid to criticize basketball god Michael Jordan or founding father George Washington. He gazes at gangsta rap and the white Christian church with the same unflinching eye. No one is protected, not even the author himself." It is this "in-your-face-honesty," as Smith described it, that took McCall from the prison cell to a distinguished career in journalism and writing, and on to a university lectureship; a long and difficult road.

Growing Up Troubled

"Sooner or later, every generation must find its voice," Henry Louis Gates, Jr., once wrote in the New Yorker. "It may be that ours belongs to Nathan McCall." Gates is one of many reviewers who have praised Makes Me Wanna Holler. In his memoir, McCall describes his transformation from an angry and self-destructive criminal to a successful Washington Post reporter. He tells of his upbringing, one of five children raised in a middle-class section of Portsmouth, Virginia, where he grew up as the son of strict but caring working-class parents. As the contributor for Contemporary Black Biography observed, McCall's family "was neither poor nor dysfunctional. His mother stayed at home to raise the children, and his stepfather earned a good wage working in the local naval shipyard. Both parents preached the gospel of education, hard work, and self-denial." Although he was a good student, McCall was picked on and beaten up by white classmates at his mostly white junior high school. In search of protection, he fell in with a group of tough young blacks. "Alone I was afraid of the world and insecure," he writes in Makes Me Wanna Holler. "But I felt cockier and surer of myself when hanging with my boys. . . . There was no fear of standing out, feeling vulnerable, exiled and exposed. That was a comfort even my family couldn't provide."

Throughout high school, McCall and his "boys" regularly engaged in gang fights, burglaries, and "training" girls—that is, gang-raping them. By the age of seventeen, when many young men and women are making college plans, McCall was abusing drugs and alcohol and carrying a gun. He still managed to graduate from high school in 1973 and went on to Norfolk State University for a time, but quickly dropped out as his drug use increased. In 1975 he received a sentence of four weekends in jail for the attempted murder of another black youth, whom he shot at point-blank range during a quarrel. Luckily, the other youth survived, and McCall was let off with a relatively minor sentence. While on probation for that crime, however, he held up a fast-food restaurant and was brandishing a gun during the crime, an act that earned him twelve years in prison. He was twenty at the time.

Prison has proved to be a crucible experience for many young black men. As William J. Drummond noted in the San Jose Mercury News, "Like Eldridge Cleaver before him. McCall [was] reshaped on the unyielding anvil of prison life. He learned the hard way to consider the consequences of his actions." In prison, McCall set about reforming himself, becoming first a Christian, and then a Muslim. During a stint as the inmate librarian, McCall came across the story of another angry black man who ends up in jail: Richard Wright's Native Son. "I identified strongly with Bigger [Thomas, the novel's protagonist]," he recalled in Makes Me Wanna Holler. "The book's portrait of Bigger captured all those conflicting feelings—restless anger, hopelessness, a tough facade among blacks and a deep-seated fear of whites—that I'd sensed in myself but was unable to express." As McCall further explained in his autobiography, "I developed through my encounter with Richard Wright a fascination with the power of words. It blew my mind to think that somebody could take words that described exactly how I felt and put them together in a story like that. Most of the books I'd been given in school were about white folks' experiences and feelings. I spent all that time learning about damned white folks, like my reality didn't exist and wasn't valid for the rest of the world."

That an author could describe so clearly the things he himself had been feeling amazed McCall and led him to other books, including The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Slowly, McCall began to see himself not as a "bad nigger" but as "an intelligent-thinking human being." By the time he was released on parole after serving just three years of his sentence, McCall had already decided to pursue a career in journalism. Even before release from prison, McCall began inquiring about the possibility for entrance to the journalism program at Norfolk State University. Encouraged by a professor, he applied for a scholarship sponsored by the journalism department, and

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won a one-year tuition stipend. Upon release, he was thus admitted to the journalism program at Norfolk State University and eventually graduated with honors.

Journalism and Makes Me Wanna Holler

After graduation, McCall worked first for the Virginian Pilot/Ledger Star and then the Atlanta Journal-Constitution before being approached by the Washington Post about a reporting job. During this time as a journalist, he was terrified that his time as a convict would be discovered and held against him; thus he devised a story to explain the missing three years between high school and college, and even expunged all stories about his arrest from the clipping file at his first newspaper. Such secrecy followed him to Atlanta and also when he applied at the Post. Despite the impressive credentials on his resume, he chose to lie on his application in response to a question about whether he had ever been convicted of a felony. McCall revealed his criminal record during the interview process, however, prompting Post officials to reject him. They reconsidered their decision and finally hired him in 1989 to write for the Metro section. There he covered city hall and the Washington, D.C., prison system, and also wrote opinion pieces for the "Outlook" section. After five years at the paper, he published his memoir.

One of the qualities of McCall's writing that initially struck critics is the power of his narrative voice. As Gates declared, "He is a mesmerizing storyteller whose prose is richly inflected with the vernacular of his time and place. In fact, his colloquial style is so unshowy and unforced that his mastery is easy to overlook." Washington Post Book World reviewer Paul Ruffins offered a similar observation, noting that "without indulging in exhibitionism, McCall here strips himself naked in an honest confession. He may have a past he regrets, but Holler is a strong downpayment on his redemption." And as John Mort observed in a Booklist review of Makes Me Wanna Holler, "almost everything is harrowing in this story of a black man succeeding in a white world."

Many reviewers drew a comparison between McCall and authors such as Malcolm X, Eldridge Cleaver, and Richard Wright—and, more directly, between McCall and the character of Bigger Thomas from Wright's Native Son. "In some respects," Gates wrote, "I'd venture that the young McCall was closer to Bigger Thomas than Wright was." In fact, contended Ruffins, "McCall's evolution from angry thug to edgy black professional is much more relevant to most people's lives" than the changes described by his predecessors. "Malcolm X, Eldridge Cleaver and George Jackson all discovered religion or revolution, extraordinary truths that transformed their lives. In prison McCall finds his salvation in smaller ideas like, 'Work hard,' and 'Think before you act.'"

Still, some critics find that Makes Me Wanna Holler contains its share of flaws. Commenting in the New York Times Book Review, Adam Hochschild expressed "mounting exasperation at the way Mr. McCall blames the white world for almost everything he suffers. . . . At the three newspapers Mr. McCall has worked at, in the endless clashes with white colleagues or bosses that he describes, he is always in the right, and the problem is always the other person's racism." But as Hochschild went on to point out, "Mr. McCall's anger goes far beyond race, for he seldom gives a shred of credence to the point of view of anyone else, white or black." Concluded the reviewer: "This fury becomes a substitute for any real analysis of why his early life turned out as it did, and of what can be done to save a generation of young black men from the same fate." Similar criticism came from the Nation's Jill Nelson, who called the book a "coming-of-rage story as seen through the prism of pathology." Nelson further commented, "What [McCall] doesn't give us is the introspection and sense of process to understand that life." And Gene Lyons had similar criticism in Entertainment Weekly: "Where McCall falters is not merely in the all-too-familiar the-white-man-mademe-do-it casuistry that pervades the book, nor in his constant demeaning references to 'tweedy, pencil-head white men' and 'flour-faced, blue-haired' white women—offensive though they are. The truth is that he doesn't do a whole lot more persuasive job with the book's one-dimensional black characters, beginning, unfortunately, with himself." Despite such criticisms, however, Lyons concluded, "A troubling, compelling polemic all the same."

Hochschild, Nelson, and Lyons are not the only reviewers to note McCall's failure or inability to explain the reasons why he turned to crime. But some critics regard it as one of the book's strengths rather than a weakness. "What sets [Makes Me Wanna Holler] apart from similar works by less talented writers is [its] refusal to oversimplify or offer easy prescriptions for the underclass dilemma," asserted Jack E. White in Time. Gates, too, found McCall's ambiguity "a sign of the fierce honesty that infuses the entire book; he's willing to address the question without pretending to have an answer to it." More praise for the book came from Patricia Noonan, writing in School Library Journal. Noonan felt the book "captures the pain, anger, and fierce determination" of a young man growing up black in America. She also commended the "open and honest description of his life," which was told in "such an immediate and compelling fashion that young people will be caught up in" the story. Writing for the Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service, Salim Muwakkil similarly found this "story of redemption and rehabilitation . . . a moving account of human growth." Likewise, the American Journalism Review's Howard Bray noted that McCall's story "is one of perseverance and redemption that seems to be still underway. It belongs in every school library—maybe young readers won't then have to discover it [in] jail."

In the end, McCall maintains he does not feel a part of mainstream society. "At times I feel suspended in a kind of netherworld, belonging fully neither to the streets nor to the establishment," he writes in Makes Me Wanna Holler. Such dislocation applies to his position at the Post as well, according to Detroit News reviewer Ruth Coughlin. "He says it's a place where he doesn't feel comfortable," reported Coughlin, "even though a good thing about being in the mainstream is that it brought him into contact 'with a lot of good whites who made it a lot more complicated for me to just dismiss all white people. I'm there on the rolls, I'm signed up in the personnel office . . . but I don't feel that I belong.'"

The media stir that resulted from the publication of Makes Me Wanna Holler prompted McCall to take a leave of absence from the Post in order to promote his best-selling book. An excerpt from it appeared in Newsweek, and McCall became the subject of numerous print and television interviews.

What's Going On and Beyond

McCall eventually returned to the Post and began work on What's Going On: Personal Essays (1997). Maintaining the easy, conversational style of his first book, McCall gives, in eleven essays, his opinions on racism and contemporary black experiences, including his thoughts on the continued influence of Muhammad Ali, the dangers of "gangsta rap," the identity crisis of the black middle class, black men and basketball, and the death of a former "homeboy." McCall takes issue not only with white leaders but also with blacks who can only view themselves as victims.

Writing on the collection in the New York Times Book Review, Michael E. Ross noted that the pieces "reinforce the moral authority McCall previously brought to the issue of America's racial schisms." However, Ross also found that "much of the book feels hurried and oddly insubstantial." Booklist's Bonnie Smothers, on the other hand, characterized the topics covered in What's Going On as "hot or engaging" and praised McCall as "a very savvy practitioner of personal writing." She rated the description of the dead "homeboy" and his grieving mother as the most affecting essay in the collection and noted that teenagers in particular would value the book for its take on contemporary life.

Despite the sometimes bitter tone of this second book, McCall still held out hope for the future of race relations in the United States, as he told Lekan Oguntoyinbo for Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service."'I'm encouraged,'" McCall said, "'by the fact that we can sit down with white people and have honest discussions. I think it's difficult for white people to extend themselves into this because they don't have to. So I'm wholly impressed when I see whites making an effort.'"

If you enjoy the works of Nathan McCall

If you enjoy the works of Nathan McCall, you might want to check out the following books:

Claude Brown, Manchild in the Promised Land, 1965.

Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, 1965.

Sister Souljah, No Disrespect, 1996.

In 1998, McCall left his journalism position at the Washington Post to take up a visiting lectureship at Atlanta's Emory University. There he teaches introductory news reporting and writing, creative writing, and a class on African American images in the media. As he noted on the Emory University Web site, "I really want to challenge students to think critically about news with a view toward helping bolster the profession down the road."

Biographical and Critical Sources

BOOKS

Contemporary Black Biography, Volume 8, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1994.

McCall, Nathan, Makes Me Wanna Holler: A Young Black Man in America, Random House (New York, NY), 1994.

PERIODICALS

American Journalism Review, April, 1994, Howard Bray, review of Makes Me Wanna Holler, pp. 51-52.

American Visions, April-May, 1994, David Nicholson, review of Makes Me Wanna Holler, pp. 29-30.

Booklist, October 1, 1997, p. 292; January 1, 1994, John Mort, review of Makes Me Wanna Holler, p. 794; October 1, 1997, Bonnie Smothers, review of What's Going On, p. 292.

Detroit News, February 16, 1994, Ruth Coughlin, review of Makes Me Wanna Holler, p. C1.

Entertainment Weekly, March 4, 1994, Gene Lyons, review of Makes Me Wanna Holler, pp. 56-57.

Essence, November, 1995, Thelma Golden, "Black Muscularity: A Long, Hard Look behind the Fierce Cool," pp. 96-102.

Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service, May 25, 1994, Salim Muwakkil, "Black Men: Inspired Lives, Endangered Lives," p. 0525K4353; December 17, 1997, Lekan Oguntoyinbo, "Author Nathan McCall Channels His Anger over Racism into New Book, 'What's Going On,'" p. 1217K8681.

Monthly Review, March, 1996, Thad Williamson, review of Makes Me Wanna Holler, pp. 54-57.

Nation, April 25, 1994, Jill Nelson, review of Makes Me Wanna Holler, pp. 562-565.

New Yorker, March 7, 1994, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., review of Makes Me Wanna Holler, pp. 94-99.

New York Times Book Review, February 27, Adam Hochschild, 1994, review of Makes Me Wanna Holler, p. 11-12; November 2, 1997, Michael E. Ross, review of What's Going On, p. 28.

Publishers Weekly, January 3, 1994, p. 64; September 1, 1997, p. 87; September 1, 1997, review of What's Going On, pp. 87-88.

San Jose Mercury News (San Jose, CA), March 13, 1994, William J. Drummond, review of Makes Me Wanna Holler, p. 19.

School Library Journal, August, 1994, Patricia Noonan, review of Makes Me Wanna Holler, pp. 185-186.

Time, March 7, 1994, Jack E, White, review of Makes Me Wanna Holler, p. 68.

Washington Post, October 28, 1995, Linton Weeks, "Wheeling a Farrakhan Deal," p. D1.

Washington Post Book World, February 6, 1994, Paul Ruffins, review of Makes Me Wanna Holler, p. 2.

ONLINE

Austin Chronicle Online,http://weeklywire.com/ (March 9, 1998), Claiborne Smith, "In Person: Nathan McCall at Folktales."

Emory University Web site,http://www.emory.edu/ (September 21, 1998), "Author, Reporter Nathan McCall Joins Emory Faculty."

Norfolk State University Web Site,http://www.nsu.edu/ (December 16, 2000), "Best-selling Author Nathan McCall to Speak at the NSU Alumni Association Commencement Banquet."*